Valdosta, GA - South Georgia Medical Center’s Engineering Department hosted an open house for the hospital’s new $10 million emergency power plant on July 16. During the opening ceremonies, SGMC CEO Randy Sauls recognized guests and gave a special thanks to the construction teams for confronting the challenges and bringing the project to fruition. Mr. Sauls also commended Valdosta Electric and the SGMC Engineering Department for the 12 minutes of downtime in 530 hours of cutover time. Cutover activity involved moving the backup power supply from the original power plant over to the new one.

Trav Paulk with Valdosta Electric thanked the Hospital Authority of Valdosta & Lowndes County, Georgia for using Valdosta Electric and a host of other local contractors to complete this big task. Paulk reminded everyone of the almost daily rainfall that was experienced last winter and spring and how his crews would spend the morning pumping water out of the construction site only to have it refilled by the afternoon rains. By looking at the beautiful building and landscaped surroundings today, you would never know those problems existed.

The power plant was designed and built to provide emergency power for the SGMC Main Campus including the new Dasher Memorial Heart Center and Patient Tower. The power plant houses 42 miles of cables and conduit. When the big diesel generators are fired up the system uses 180 gallons of diesel fuel per hour to operate key systems within the hospital.

The original power plant was opened in the 1950s with upgrades to equipment in the 1980s. The new power plant is one of the most sophisticated of its kind.

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